Comic-Con News: Dark Horse Comics will publish an on-going comic book series based on the storyline of Halo 4, the latest iteration of the popular first-person shooter game that debuted last November. Dark Horse’s Halo: Escalation #1 will be written by Chris Schlerf, the lead writer on the Halo 4 videogame. Omar Francia (Mass Effect) will provide the art for the first three issues with Anthony Palumbo providing the cover art.

According to Wired magazine, Frank O’Conner, who is in charge of the Halo development team, will introduce the new Halo: Escalation title today at Comic-Con. Dark Horse, which has had considerable success with both comics based on video games (Mass Effect) and collections of videogame art (The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Historia, see "Dark Horse Has the #1 Book in America") recently acquired the rights to Halo, which had previously belonged to Marvel (see "Dark Horse Gets a 'Halo'").

Dark Horse’s first Halo release, a miniseries Halo: Initiation will debuton August 14th, but Halo: Escalation will actually be the first ongoing comic book series based on the popular videogame (Marvel released some Halo graphic novels and miniseries, but no continuing series).

Microsoft is intent on expanding the Halo franchise in to other media. The live-action TV series Halo: Forward Unto Dawn that was produced last year was just nominated for an Emmy, and Steven Spielberg is producing another live-action Halo TV series that was announced in May.